Reginald Cruden, Talbot Baines Reed [best black authors txt] 📗

little of him as Hamlet’s mother did of the Ghost.

However, for the time being that nod of Mr Medlock’s was all Durfy particularly coveted. He was hungry. Time enough to stand on his dignity when the knife and fork had done their work.

“Yes,” said Mr Shanklin, “time’s up to-day. I’ve told him where to find us. If he doesn’t, you must go your trip by yourself; I can safely stay and screw my man up.”

“Think he will turn up?”

“Can’t say. He seems to be flush enough of money still.”

“Well, he can’t say you’ve not helped him to get rid of it.”

“I’ve done my best,” said Mr Shanklin, laughing.

“I shall be glad of a holiday. It’s as hard work sponging one fool as it is fleecing a couple of hundred sheep, eh?”

“Well, the wool came off very easily, I must say. I reckon there’ll be a clean £500 to divide on the Liverpool business alone.”

“Nice occupation that’ll be on the Boulogne steamer to-morrow,” said Mr Shanklin. “Dear me, I hope it won’t be rough, I’m such a bad sailor!”

“Then, of course,” said Mr Medlock, “there’ll be your little takings to add to that. Your working expenses can’t have been much.”

Mr Shanklin laughed again.

“No. I’ve done without circulars and a salaried secretary. By the way, do you fancy any one smells anything wrong up in the North yet?”

“Bless you, no. The fellow’s pretty near starving, and yet he sent me up a stray £2 he received the other day. It’s as good as a play to read the letters he sends me up about getting the orders executed in strict rotation, as entered in a beautiful register he kept, and which I borrowed, my boy. Ha! ha! He wants me to run down to Liverpool, he says, as he’s not quite satisfied with his position there. Ho! ho! And he’d like a little money on account, as he’s had to buy stamps and coals and all that sort of thing out of his own thirteen shillings a week. It’s enough to make one die of laughing, isn’t it?”

“It is funny,” said Mr Shanklin. “But you’re quite right to be on the safe side and start to-morrow. You did everything in his name, I suppose—took the office, ordered the printing, and all that sort of thing?”

“Oh yes, I took care of that. My name or yours was never mentioned, except mine on the dummy list of directors. That won’t hurt.”

“Well, the Corporation’s had a short life and a merry one; and your precious secretary’s likely to have a merry Christmas after it all—unless you’d like to go down and spend it with him, Durfy,” added Mr Shanklin, taking notice for the first time of the presence of their visitor.

Durfy replied by a scowl.

“I shall be far enough away by then,” said he.

“Why, where are you going?”

“I’m going with you, to be sure,” said he, doggedly.

Messrs Medlock and Shanklin greeted this announcement with a laugh of genuine amusement.

“I’m glad you told us,” said Mr Shanklin. “We should have forgotten to take a ticket for you.”

“You may grin,” said Durfy. “I’m going, for all that.”

“You’re a bigger fool even than you look,” said Mr Medlock, “to think so. You can consider yourself lucky to get a supper out of us this last night.”

“You forget I can make it precious awkward for you if I like,” growled Durfy.

“Awkward! You’ve a right to be a judge of what’s awkward after the neat way you’ve managed things,” sneered Shanklin. “It takes you all your time to make things awkward for yourself, let alone troubling about us.”

Durfy always hated when Mr Shanklin alluded to his blunders, and he scowled all the more viciously now because he felt that, after all, he could do little against his two patrons which would not recoil with twofold violence on his own head. No, he had better confine his reprisals to the Crudens by Mr Shuckleford’s assistance, and meanwhile make what he could out of these ungrateful sharpers.

“If you don’t want me with you,” said he, “you’ll have to make it worth my while to stay away, that’s all. You’d think it a fine joke if you found yourself in the police-station instead of the railway-station to-morrow morning, wouldn’t you?”

And Mr Durfy’s face actually relaxed into a smile at this flash of pleasantry.

“You’d find it past a joke if you found yourself neck-and-crop in the gutter in two minutes,” said Mr Shanklin, in a rage, “as you will do if you don’t take care.”

“I’ll take care for fifty pounds,” said Durfy. “It’s precious little share I’ve had out of the business, and if you want me mum, that’s what will do it. There, I could tell you a thing or two already; you don’t know—”

“Tush! Durfy, you’re a born ass! Come round to my hotel to-morrow at eight, and I’ll see what I can do for you,” said Mr Medlock.

Durfy knew how to value such promises, and did not look by any means jubilant at the prospect held out. However, at this moment Blandford and Pillans entered the supper-room, and his hosts had something better to think about than him.

He was hustled from his place to make room for the new guests, and surlily retired to a neighbouring table, where, if he could not hear all that was said, he could at least see all that went on.

“Hullo!” said Shanklin gaily, “here’s a nice time to turn up, dear boys. Medlock and I have nearly done supper.”

“Couldn’t help. We’ve been to the theatre, haven’t we, Pillans?” said Blandford, who appeared already to be rather the worse for drink.

“I have. You’ve been in the bar most of the time,” said Pillans.

“Ha! ha! I was told Bland was studying for the Bar. I do like application,” said Mr Medlock.

Blandford seemed to regard this as a compliment, and sitting down at the table, told the waiter to bring a bottle of champagne and some more glasses.

“Well,” he said, with a simper, “what I say I’ll do, I’ll do. I said I’d turn up here and pay you that bill, Shanklin, and I have turned up, haven’t I?”

“Upon my honour, I’d almost forgotten that bill,” said Mr Shanklin, who had thought of little else for the last week. “It’s not inconvenient, I hope?”

Blandford laughed stupidly.

“Sorry if a trifle like that was inconvenient,” said he, with all the languor of a millionaire. “Forget what it was about. Some take in, I’ll swear. Never mind, a debt’s a debt, and here goes. How much is it?”

“Fifty,” said Mr Shanklin.

Blandford produced a pocket-book with a flourish, and took from it a handful of notes that made Durfy’s eyes, as he sat at the distant table, gleam. The half-tipsy spendthrift was almost too muddled to count them correctly, but finally he succeeded in extracting five ten-pound notes from the bundle, which he tossed to Shanklin.

“Thanks, very much,” said that gentleman, putting them in his pocket. “I find I’ve left your bill at home, but I’ll send it round to you in the morning.”

“Oh, all serene!” said Blandford, putting his pocketbook back into his pocket. “Have another bottle of cham—do—just to celebrate—settling—old scores. Hullo, where are you, Pillans?”

Pillans had gone off to play billiards with Mr Medlock, so Blandford and Mr Shanklin attacked the bottle themselves. When it was done, the former rose unsteadily, and, bidding his friend good-night, said he would go home, as he’d got a headache. Which was about as true an observation as man ever uttered.

“Good-night—old—feller,” said he; “see you to-morrow.”

And he staggered out of the place, assisted to the door by Mr Shanklin, who, after an affectionate farewell, sauntered to the billiard-room, where Mr Medlock had already won a five-pound note from the ingenuous Mr Pillans.

“Your friend’s in good spirits to-night,” said Mr Shanklin. “Capital fellow is Bland.”

“So he is,” said Pillans.

“Capital fellow, with plenty of capital, eh?” said Mr Medlock; “your shoot, Pillans, and I don’t mind going a sov. with you on the cannon.”

Of course Pillans lost his sovereign, as he did several others before the game was over. Then, feeling he had had enough enjoyment for one evening, he said good-bye and followed his friend home.

But some one else had already followed his friend home.

Durfy, in whose bosom the glimpse of that well-lined pocket-book had roused unusual interest, found himself ready to go home a very few moments after Blandford had quitted the Shades. It may have been only coincidence, or it may have been idle curiosity to see if the tipsy lad could find his way home without an accident, or it may have been a laudable determination that, no one should take advantage of his helpless condition to deprive him of that comfortable pocket-book. Whatever it was, Durfy followed the reeling figure along the pavement as it threaded its way westward from the Shades.

Blandford may have had reason enough left to tell him that it would be better for his headache to walk in the night air than to take a cab, and Mr Durfy highly approved of the decision. He was able without difficulty or obtrusiveness to follow his man at a few yards’ distance, and even give proof of his solicitude by an occasional steadying hand on his arm.

Presently the wanderer turned out of the crowded thoroughfare up a by-street, where he had the pavement more to himself. Indeed, except for a few stragglers hurrying home from theatres or concerts, he encountered no one; and as he penetrated farther beyond the region of public houses and tobacco-shops into the serener realms of offices and chambers, and beyond that into the solitude of a West-end square, not a footstep save his own and that of his escort broke the midnight silence.

Durfy’s heart beat fast, for he had a heart to beat on occasions like this. A hundred chances on which he had never calculated suddenly presented themselves. What if some one might be peering out into the night from one of the black windows of those silent houses? Suppose some motionless policeman under the shadow of a wall were near enough to see and hear! Suppose the cool night air had already done its work and sobered the wayfarer enough to render him obstinate or even dangerous! He seemed to walk more steadily. If anything was to be done, every moment was of consequence. And the risk?

The vision of that pocket-book and the crisp white notes flashed across Durfy’s memory by way of answer.

Yes, to Durfy, the outcast, the dupe, the baffled adventurer, the risk was worth running.

He quickened his step and opened the blade of the penknife in his pocket as he did so. Not that he meant to use it, but in case—

Faugh! the fellow was staggering as helplessly as ever! He never even heeded the pursuing steps, but reeled on, muttering to himself, now close to the palings, now on the kerb, his hat back on his head and the cigar between his lips not even alight.

Durfy crept silently behind, and with a sudden dash locked one arm tightly round his victim’s neck, while with the other he made a swift dive at the pocket where lay the coveted treasure.

It was all so quickly done that before Blandford could exclaim or even gasp the pocket-book was in the thief’s hands. Then as the arm round his neck was relaxed, he faced round, terribly sobered, and made a wild spring at his assailant.

“Thief!” he shouted, making the quiet square ring and ring again with the echo of that word.

His hand was upon Durfy’s collar, so fiercely that nothing but a hand-to-hand struggle could release its grip; unless—

Durfy’s hand dropped to his pocket. There was a flash and a scream, and next moment Blandford was clinging, groaning, to the railings of the square, while Durfy’s footsteps died away in the gloomy mazes of a network of back streets.

When Pillans got home to his lodgings that night he found his comrade in bed with a severe wound in the shoulder, unable